From When Times Were Simpler
by sarahwuzheree
Summary: A case, a good, at least 7 and up, case, is all Sherlock needs to be happy as a consulting detective. This is a fic that crosses time, and has a slight back story in America, but other than that it is all London. Rated M for mentions of drugs and possible vivid crime scene descriptions in future chapters.


**Hi everyone :) glad to be back! Sorry I haven't been able to update anything for a while actually I've been very busy with my school schedule. Well I'm glad to be putting this up here because this came to me a few nights ago and I was just on the edge of sleep when it did so I hope it doesn't seem like I'm missing chunks of information..I did have my beta read it, but if there are mistakes I'll most likely be able to fix them later. Sorry again if there are!**

**Don't own, don't profit. All credit to ACD, Moffat, & Gatiss.**

**Enjoy! :)**

The snow lay on the ground and on the branches of the many pine trees and the roof tops of houses scattered around. It wasn't the type of snow that enables the avid snowball fighter or snowman maker to venture out into the cold, but it was the fluffy do-nothing type. All the children knew it as soon as they saw the snow falling and finally stick to the surfaces of everything in sight.

There was nothing to be made, no fun to be had, so they stayed in there homes and pouted over the fluffy snow that wouldn't even provide so much as a snow day. This was a light dusting for upstate Vermont and really added an extra beauty to the scenery every time the white fell and stuck to all objects. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and to visitors it was something that they wanted to see all the time, even though they probably rather be in some warmer weather climate. This was the snow that fell on a beautiful, November weekend in the rolling hills of Vermont. The snow softly adds barely any weight to the branches of the pines. The pines are so old and strong they did not feel anything as the feather light fluffy snow landed on them and acted as if this was of normality. In reality it was in a way, the snow would fall and not a branch would break from it when it fell like this, but when it was a twisted, wicked snow storm, heavy and disastrous, that's when things became questionable.

xXx

Fifty-two years ago a couple set out for Vermont, they sought out the rolling hills and the snow that sparkled when the sun hit it, but did not melt. When they reached Vermont they went into the small town as they always had when they arrived this time of year, every year. Upon arrival they had been warned to be careful for there was a storm that was headed in that night that could bring down even the strongest of trees in the forest. The couple, now warned, headed out to their log cabin in a somewhat secluded wooded area.

They entered the cabin, the woman in the mans arms as he opened the door and crossed the threshold. This had always been there place, where they had come for so long before they had been married only last month.

The female of the couple pregnant, carrying her husbands child and already three weeks into her pregnancy. The husband of course had no idea either having not noticed any unusual behavior changes or routine changes in his wife.

This cabin was there new home. They had each moved away from their parents to be together in a place that seemed to offer so much comfort and happiness from the landscape alone. Their cabin was their first home together.

Fresh out of college, the husband and his wife were both equally as educated, although he did try to persuade her not to get a job until after his hunt for one here was successful. She had a problem with this, but not wanting to cause a row with him she elected to ignore his comments and went along with her search as well.

They unpacked their things and were settled in by dusk and ate their dinner together silently as the wind began to whip a little more angry, outside their cabin walls. After dinner was no different, the wind did not soften, and as the hour grew later and their bed beckoned them to it, the wind, did not die. In fact it grew louder and louder, howling as it whipped and whirled snow around and laid it heavily on everything in every direction.

When she woke up at first it was still dark out and so she went back to sleep seeing her partner not up yet either. Again she woke up, but she did not know why, and again her partner was still in bed with her, his arm lightly around her waist this time and breathing slowly letting her know he was deeply asleep.

xXx

John listened to Greg explain the situation of this couple in America and thought that there was no way possible murders spread apart over such a long length of time could be connected. Let alone committed by the same person.. Then he realized that only an idiot would rule that out, just as Sherlock had said when he explained his one of many theories on this case.

Overall John thought that this couple had been very happy and that being in their situation...he would have tried to not do the same thing.

xXx

When they both finally woke up there was snow blocking the door way and if attempting to open this door was possible there would have been snow inside the cabin. The windows were frozen shut and the resources they had might not last them very long.

The husband looked to his wife and a very soft expression told her calmly their situation and how they would be able to get through. He thought in no time a neighbor would come and find them only..their nearest neighbor was about a half mile away.

With no where to go and nothing to preoccupy them they ate their breakfast and went to lie back down together on their bed. They just stayed there until the sun was at its highest and decided that they had to do something other than sit around and wait for someone.

The man lit a fire and had the house warmed up in a matter of minutes and took a thick branch and stuck it in the fire. He made sure it was burning well and took it to a window and tried to defrost it.

An hour later, his wife checked on him, he was now seated in a chair, she came over with a wool blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders and kissed his cheek.

A few days went on of a similar pattern like this and the man tried to show no signs of losing faith, but his wife saw through him on this.

He was going mad from this experience. And so to solve his problems, after a week of isolation he went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and stabbed himself after falling to the ground, having lost balance and looked up to his wife with scarred, mad eyes. He still had his half used cigarette in his fingers and died arguing with his wife, the last thing he heard her say was that she was pregnant.

xXx

"Wouldn't you have gone insane under similar circumstances?" John asked Sherlock in the flat after returning from The Yard.

"Absolutely not. I would likely have had more tolerance to the drug." Sherlock spoke mildly from his place on his back on the sofa, fingers steepled under his chin.

"Sorry..sorry did you say drug?" John asked him surprised.

Sherlock let out a sigh, "Yes, of course it was a drug, John. It's all very obvious."

"I don't see how it's obvious." John said from the kitchen standing, facing the kettle he put on.

Sherlock opened his eyes and stood moving to where John was in the kitchen making tea. In his personal space, taking his arms firmly in his large hands, "He was never diagnosed for suicidal tendencies, John. Don't you see?!", taking his hands off John and back up to explain, "PCP was created in 1926, but patented in 1952, nine years before the event. Nearly twenty years later, in the United States, PCP usage for recreation is recorded at an extremely high rate and seen as a threat to America. Those are only the reported uses! Don't you see now, John?!" He clapped excitedly, "That means when the wife gave him the cigarette he smoked a very potent variety of the drug and his body could not handle it. In some cases PCP can lead to suicidal thoughts, or actions..that's how it is obvious, John."

John was silent for a moment as he took in Sherlock's explanation and was interrupted by the screeching of the kettle behind him.

Sherlock stalled back to the sitting room and perched himself in his leather chair.

"Now what you're saying is...that the wife dipped her husbands cigarette in liquid PCP?" John asked him as he brought out their tea. He knew there was a very minuscule chance that Sherlock would even actually think of drinking the tea, but he made it and gave it to him anyway.

"Yes, John." Sherlock sighed, a bit upset John was not grasping this and moving on to bigger things and expanding it to the case in the early nineteen-nineties and then again just yesterday, both of which were in London.

"John..don't you see? The murders..they're all linked. The one in America in 1961, the one in London, 1993, and just yesterday. They all are linked! This one has so much potential to be so..brilliant." Sherlock lost himself in his mind, losing John as always.

John realized what had happened at Sherlock's silence and nodded and sipped at his tea.

"Fifty-two years...got to be brilliant for waiting so long, or completely idiotic. Couldn't be the same person, maybe the son? Like his mother, crimes of passion made to look like suicides. Oh yes, clever, very clever." Sherlock mumbled to himself, smiling only slightly as he realized this to be the work of a hidden serial killer. "Oh serial killers are always quite clever.." He continued to smile and then looked to John, "John could you pass my phone?"

The mobile had been on the other side of the room on the sofa arm and John lazily got up and snatched it and gave it to the consulting detective still perched on his chair.

"Send this text, word for word, to Lestrade: 'Need name of victim and wife, find any child records, search child databases, foster cares, etc just find the son. Text me when you have what I need. -SH' "

John looked at Sherlock and then began typing out what he had said and sent it to Greg quickly not wanting the detective to become impatient over it not being sent.

"You think these are linked...and that they are serials?"

"I don't think they are..I know. She was pregnant, only three months, not very long, she would have given birth to her child in the expected time of May, the date is unknown at the moment, but the year would have been 1962. If she had kept him, he would have been exposed to her ideals and therefore any tendencies she had. She was his influence, his muse, he used her own incident as a model. He isn't just a serial killer, he likes to have someone to copy, he needs to, but he continues to copy her; why? Why do that when there are others?" Sherlock paused to create theories on why.

John interrupted Sherlock's thinking, "Maybe, because he was so influenced by his mother, and because she was the only authority figure and biological parent in his life, he attached himself even more so to her and used her as a guide..?" John spoke out loud and as soon as he finished he realized that what was in his head had been spoken, he shrugged his shoulders and scrunched his eyes ready for the scorn. It did not come.

"Very good, John."

John quickly realized that Sherlock had left it open for John to answer, not himself, Sherlock already knew, he was testing John to see if he was paying any attention.

Sherlock stood up, and swinging his arms elegantly into the arms of his coat and tying his scarf quickly, calling from the lower flight of stairs, "Come on, John! Off to the morgue!"


End file.
